Assessment and Your Child

1. Assessment and Your Child International School Eastern Seaboard

2. Outcomes • What is education today? • What are best practices that we should be using in schools?

3. Why I Hate School but Love Education video

4. Discussion Starter Turn and Talk In terms of assessment and reporting, what is the “game of school?”

5. Using Assessment to Improve Instruction “It is very difficult for students to achieve a learning goal unless they understand that goal and can assess what they need to do to reach it. So self-assessment is essential to learning.” (Paul Black et al. 2003, p. 49)

8. Fixed Mind Set • Children are born gifted • Children have natural talent • Their traits are set in stone

9. Growth Mind Set • Success come from effort • Success comes from practice • Success comes from hard work

10. Problems with the Fixed Mindset • Children are given a label • Once they get the label they don’t want to lose it • Fearful of making mistakes • In order to grow and learn we all must make mistakes • When something does not come naturally, they have to put in effort and at this point some don’t know what to do

11. Growth Mindset • Activity enjoyment • Learning enjoyment • Process enjoyment • Childhood enjoyment • Enjoy challenges

12. “People are, to a large extend, in charge of their own intelligence. Being smart- and staying smart - is not just a gift, not just a product of their genetic good fortune, it is very much a product of what they put into it.” Carol Dweck, PhD

13. Drive and Motivation Daniel Pink We need to move kids toward autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

14. Offer Praise… The Right Way • Praise effort and strategy, not intelligence • Make praise specific • Offer praise only when there's a good reason for it

15. Standards-Based Assessment and Reporting

16. Why Standards-Based?

17. “There is a century of consistent evidence that makes the need for change in grading policies obvious.... many common grading practices are ineffective and counterproductive.” Douglas Reeves

18. Why Standards-Based? Our experience shows us that standards-based assessment and reporting is best for student learning. Standards-based is a growth model rather than a deficit model. It promotes improvement and mastery learning. Remember.....teachers arestill teaching and the kids are still learning. This is just a new perspective on assessment and reporting that refocuses energy on growth.

19. Standards-Based A process where each student’s performance is assessed against criteria of learning targets within a specific subject. The standards-based report card communicates progress towards mastery of learning standards.

20. Common Misconceptions • Confusion between the standards movement and standards-based assessment • Students lose motivation to do their work • It’s an unfair system that rewards procrastinators • It can work at elementary but not at the secondary level • We can’t get rid of the letter grade in high school

21. “In a standards-based school, students are active in thinking about their learning. They know where they’re going, where they are now and how to close the gap between the two.” Rick Stiggins

22. Five Major Elements Students are aware of the criteria for success. In other words, students know what they have to do in order to be successful. It’s not a mystery. Teachers provide students with feedback regarding their progress against the criteria. In other words, students know how well they are performing.

23. Five Major Elements Students receive feedback about how to improve, so that they can work towards meeting the criteria. In other words, students know what they need to work on to improve. There are opportunities for students to show improvement regarding the criteria. In other words, students get a chance to show improvement throughout the reporting term.

24. Five Major Elements Learning is individualized. In other words, the feedback that students receive is specific to their own performance when compared to a clear set of expectations.

25. Standards- Based Grading and the Game of School

26. Learning Formative assessment Summative assessments No zeros All work turned in No penalty for late work, just get it done

27. New Role for Educators Shift from teaching TO .....ensuring that all students are learning. We have to ask ourselves, “Do our grading practices reflect this new role?”

28. Updated Report Cards Product – Standards Process Goals ESLRs